


When It Rains, It--

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon things, Domestic Fluff, Don't Mess With the Best, Epic Love, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Pitched Battle, Shanana Another New Work, college students
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1670576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which John Is Clearly Useless, Karkat Is Not Human, and Best Friends Are Not to Be Trusted.<br/>Also, true love's kisses will save the day.  And all that jazz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When It Rains, It--

                Sheesh, John needs to not do anything important.

                It’s been a rough week, okay? And not to name any names here (Ms. Keeler), but it won’t be easing up anytime soon. There’s this whole list of things he’s gotta do, helpfully provided by his dad, and John’s just not feeling it. So: all things responsibility are on hold until further notice. It’s raining and this means John has to take a break. A nice, _long_ break. He is going to laze around with all the free will god gave man. Yes, John knows of your judgment.

                John also does not care.

               The game plan is sublime. He’s spending the day in his boxers, on the couch, with his feet propped up on the coffee table like he’s not supposed to. There will be snacks. Snacks that will be… something sweet, yup. Sounds awesome. After brief deliberation, John settles on the sofa with a box of cookies and no unmet worldly desires.

                You know what goes great with lazy, rainy days? Movies, oh hell yes.

                But ten minutes later, he’s paused it and is in the cabinets again.             

                John isn’t _hungry_ per se. It’s more like there’s a particular taste he craves. The cookies were sweet and non-Batterwitch—therefore tasty—but they weren’t what he had in mind. Today is a day for him to not worry about anything more complicated than procuring the appropriate snack. Nothing could be more important. The cookies were one of the weird brands Karkat gets anyway, claiming they’re healthy (he’s full of crap, but John likes them too), so maybe it’s just not enough sugar? Sometimes you’ve just got to have a whole bunch of sugar and damn the consequences.

                Score, there are chocolate chips in the back of the cabinet! Victory in hand, John flings himself back into the sofa, leg bouncing, determined to enjoy an afternoon of self-indulgence and if possible, some Nick Cage. He pops a handful of chocolate chips into his mouth and crunches happily. Hmm. Yum. Just right.

                He relaxes. And lets the bliss of totally ignoring all responsibility really sink in.

                Glorious!

                Except no, he’s back up again with barely a dent made in the chocolate stash. Man does John _want_ something—this is getting dire—he just can’t figure out what it is! The rain sighs outside, and he feels like maybe he should just suck it up and go to the store? John will definitely know it when he _sees_ this snack. His mystery craving is probably not in the cabinet at all, because nothing is jumping out at him.

                Ugh, this is like not being able to remember a word, but like SIX MILLION TIMES WORSE.

                Cereal? Uh, noooo.

                Fruit? Closer, but still negative. Not sweet enough, after eating chocolate. John’s sure he’s thinking of something that has, like, _sugargeddon_ levels of sweetness. Something that will stick to the roof of his mouth and leave him on a giddy all night.

                He could make waffles and do the whole syrup soup thing, but no, that entails work he doesn’t want to do. College apartments are just generally not good for dad-made waffles, so no dice there.

                Okay. This is just getting dumb. He’s going to pick something to eat, sit down, and eat it. It’s movie time. He’s got the afternoon to himself, he’s got snacks, he’s got Nick Cage, and he’s damn well going to not spend his free time making faces at his stock of edibles. He will triumphantly wallow on the sofa in his underwear. John kicks his legs dramatically over the back of the couch so he’s upside down and everybody’s noses look funny.

                John just grabbed a box of fruit rollups in the end (they’re kind of healthy? Dude, they have _something_ to do with fruit) and fiddles with the remote while he unpeels. He chews the end of a fruit snack listlessly, sulking some. Wow, this sweet is still wrong. It’s offensive, all this insufficient sugar. It’s a rainy day and John can’t seem to spend it feeling happy. Lame.

                Karkat’s feelings on rainy days are announced loudly through the front door. They are strongly negative. John sits up, shedding fruit snack.

                Karkat drips inside like a crumpled, blown-out umbrella. John is pretty sure it’s not raining that hard outside, but trust Karkat to walk into a monsoon that doesn’t exist for anyone else. Karkat squelches past John without comment (which is probably the kindest thing he can do given what he just called their doorknob. John is kind of impressed with the number of syllables used for that insult, honestly).

                John has to stifle a smile. Karkat—who is not human—looks like someone has been repeatedly dunking a Hungarian puli dog in large bodies of water. Only instead of a tongue, all you can see beneath the soggy black layers is the trademark Karkat scowl. When Karkat comes back out of his room, he’s stripped to his underwear too and huddled into… yup, that’s three, all the towels that were in the bathroom. John has hot chocolate. He pushes a warm mug across the plastic countertop. Karkat blinks at him uncomprehendingly.

                Oh boy. He’s lost his faith in the universe’s ability to be kind again.

                “It’s hot chocolate,” John assures him. “It only explodes on opposite Tuesdays.”

                Karkat folds the mug between his fingers and inhales over it. He looks pretty wiped out. “You’re a fucking saint. Bless you, John Egbert, from all of us illiterate ass monkeys who cannot read wide print from six inches away.” He jerks his head at the box of mix sitting by John’s elbow. John leans his elbows on the counter and lets Karkat fuss. “We are in now standing in awe of your generosity. Please, share more of your incomparably profound knowledge, I welcome it.” He’s curling around the mug like he expects someone to take it from him. John brightens.

                “You’re welcome! Now come watch movies with me.”

                Token protests follow— _John, I hate your movies; John, I refuse to abide the stench of this confectionary abomination pile you’ve constructed; John, I’m not wearing a shirt_ —but duh, Karkat lost the minute John remembered they had hot chocolate mix.

                “Uh-huh, you’re so right,” John agrees brightly. Once Karkat has made himself comfy, John places the mug back in his hands. The blanket of Rainy, Lazy Days is spread onto Karkat’s lap and John snuggles beneath the other half. Blanketsnugs initiated, they both shuffle around a little, rearranging their limbs so that nobody ends up bruised the next time something explodes.

                Karkat tucks very nicely into John’s side, sipping hot chocolate and making creaky chair noises because he’s still upset about getting rained on. He kind of pins John down with his shoulder. John ends up not being able to get at any of the candy, but it’s alright! He was mostly just persisting out of stubbornness. It’s about time to call it quits—whatever his mouth wants so much, it’s not getting it. His shoulder, on the other hand, is pretty happy about all this Karkat.

                They watch Nick Cage save the day, with Karkat telling John all about how stupid every character onscreen really is between sighs. The mug is empty, but he’s still clinging to it, tracing the enamel bunnies with extra-pointy fingernails. The entire side of Karkat’s body is smothered to John’s, and it’s really warm.

                At one point Karkat claims to have work and then growls at John like everything from the rain to Karkat’s course selections are John’s fault. It’s in the middle of a majorly intense scene in the movie too! Emotions are running high. Adrenaline flows. The music swells ominously.

                John pats Karkat’s shoulder a little (fully snuggled into the blanket; Karkat is a tuft of hair and some convincingly outraged eyebrows right now—the rest of him is oblong crochet). Karkat huffs and dumps his head contentedly on John’s shoulder.

                Karkat then winces and reels away, because he always forgets the fact that John has bony shoulders and Karkat’s head is somehow not made of titanium. It’s pretty funny, though, and he’s swearing with his lips quirked up. John doesn’t feel bad about giggling.

                Limbs are rearranged further. Karkat shoves stubbornly against John’s arm and John doesn’t even notice that the blanket is slipping until Karkat is tucking it back around them with a put-upon grumble.

                When the movie is over, John turns to the troll to insist, “That was an amazing cinematic masterpiece and you know it. Admit it, or be shamed forever.”

                Karkat replies, “You do not deserve to have eyes—it is possible that you do not in fact possess ocular discs in any true capacity. Your face is most likely a cruel joke that your life makes to confuse us both. That shitty excuse for a movie was terrible and if you listen carefully, you will hear the universe’s woebegone cries of disgust echoing in the distance.”

                Because this is important, John observes, “You have chocolate on your nose.” He licks his thumb to wipe it off and Karkat pretends to bite him. Karkat gets up, shrugging off the blanket and reswaddling John in knitting—a touch more violently than truly necessary (ow). Mug goes in the sink for them both to ignore like the proud young men they are. When he comes back over John spreads his cape like a winged avenger and bounces his eyebrows at the face Karkat makes.

                But hey, the crocheted winged avenger dude gets an armful of troll and John is busily tucking the blanket around them for maximum snuggletoastiness—when Karkat glances a kiss off of the corner of his mouth. He’s got his head tucked back down by the time John looks at him, pretending he’s too cool to go around kissing boyfriends. His ears are kind of red. “What other shitty films do you have in store to complete my suffering?” Karkat demands. John licks his lips and beams.

                …Karkat’s chocolaty. And just right, _that_ was what he was looking for. He should have gone with hot chocolate from the start.

                Have you ever really managed to stop with just one, when you find the perfect sweet? No, of course not.

                Eventually Karkat shoves him off with one of his awesome scrunched-up Not Scowls. “Watch your damn movie,” Karkat growls.

                “But Karkat, there’s no damn movie playing right now,” John points out, because John is pretty much of the opinion that Karkat smooches trump movies under all circumstances. It was a long, hard road to this place of inner peace, but John has his established hierarchy and Karkat smooches are definitely right there near the top.

                “I will sneeze on you,” Karkat threatens, even though he stopped shivering midway through Nick Cage’s awesome speech. It’s not even a very good threat, but Karkat scrunches his nose and oh look, _Sleepless in Seattle_ is on. Karkat loves this one. Their elbows hash out another territory agreement. John decides that the best place for his head to be is resting on top of Karkat’s head and slouches until he accomplishes this. Karkat growls somewhat uncomfortably close to John’s jugular, but kind of dumps his arm along the back of the couch. In about thirty minutes Karkat has given up pretending and it’s wrapped around John’s shoulder, with his thumb rubbing circles against the bone.

                “How did you manage to get so wet anyway?” John asks once Karkat has been sort of silently vibrating under John’s head for fifteen minutes. He only does that when he’s either really happy, or when he’s right about to punch someone, and John has to work harder to make Karkat lose his temper, so.

                Karkat’s voice grumbles out. “Car trouble.”

                John pulls back to give him a blank look. “Really?”

                His boyfriend does that thing where he sticks his teeth out. It’s really not as fearsome as he seems to think, especially because his hair is a mess. Great big clods of black are stuck to his ears and the bits that aren’t make this little cone on the top of Karkat’s head from John’s cheek. “Yes, _really_ , John. Shut up.”

                “I can’t believe you still,” John begins, shaking his head because Karkat is dramatically ridiculous about things. He doesn’t get any further. In John’s defense, he wasn’t expecting to get hit in the face with a sudden explosion of rain.

                Well, okay, honestly, the hierarchical order of importance here is that the wall of the apartment just got sheered off. That happened first (and it happened loudly) but the rain is more shocking because, dude. _It’s cold as balls._

                John may or may not have gotten used to things blowing up loudly in the near vicinity. He’s pretty sure he could read a book during a fire alarm at this point, that’s all he’s saying. Cold, though?

                He yelps, flailing away from the deluge. Off the sofa he goes—it’s a toss-up whether this is his fault or Karkat’s, because Karkat has this really bad habit of shoving people away from what he deems as the most dangerous thing in the room, and not really paying attention to things like whether or not there’s a coffee table in the way (ow). Karkat leaps to his feet, blanket pluming around him. The enormous face—would you look at that, that head actually does kind of look like Karkat’s car! Only twice as big and with an overabundance of sharp teeth.

                Whatever it is, it’s peering down at the hole it just made in their living room.

                “Holy shit,” Karkat says, only he’s not saying it like John is thinking it— _holy shit, that monster is uncomfortably large and does not look very friendly_ —he’s saying it like this bullshit is the incarnated form of their doorknob, and he can’t come up with a more creative string of swear words right now. This is the same tone Karkat uses when people in Starbucks get his coffee order wrong.

                He follows it up with, “Get the fuck out,” which John thinks is pretty silly and all, because this very nice metallic gentleman tore off the side of their home to say hello; he probably will insist on some small talk! John manages to tear his eyes away from the twenty foot demon to look over at his boyfriend.

                “Dude, I don’t think he wants to leave—“ The behemoth roars out a sound that kind of sounds suspiciously like thunder, and John brightens. “Wow, wait! Is this a thunder god?” He hasn’t gotten to see one of those before.

                Karkat throws him a withering look and levitates into the air.

                “Karkat, you never tell me how cool your car trouble is!” Valid complaint. All John gets to think about are midterms; his demon boyfriend gets to, you know. Singlehandedly stymie the eighteenth demon invasion of Earth between bitching about his coffee order. The thunder god(?!) aims its snarl lower, towards John and John’s ears start ringing. Wow, rude.

                Karkat, as always, responds to things with lots of teeth making funny noises at John with a roar that comes out too big for his body. Karkat’s hands are abruptly consumed by black clouds that seem to steam out from his skin. They go whipping out from his fingertips and smack against the giant’s face. The thunder god reels back with a scream, flesh smoking around the chasms Karkat just drew in it, and oh good god, that is the worst smell John has ever experienced in his life.

                Karkat is flying out the hole, chasing after his car trouble. The blanket molds to him from the rain and his boxers look ridiculous. John pinches his nose and hollers after him, “Our couch is dead and you now owe me so many kisses, Karkat!”

                There is really something to be said for being able to make Karkat’s ears turn red in the middle of pitched battle. John climbs on top of the ruined couch’s back to watch. He swings his legs happily as Karkat gets in a particularly good hit and the thunder god goes flying. Karkat’s silhouette gets traced by lightning as he shoots after him.

                Well damn, there goes John’s source of entertainment for the next twenty minutes. But on the positive side, there’s still hot chocolate. And Karkat is so going to smooch him after the fight. He’s big on after-battle smooches. John heartily concurs.

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DON'T FINISH THINGS BEFORE I START NEW ONES HOW PREPOSTEROUS  
> So I decided hiatuses suck, and...


End file.
